(0:40) Welcome
Hey listeners - welcome back to The Paleo View!Stacy is just going to jump right in because this week's topic has been something she has been ranting about for a few weeks nowSarah looked into it after Stacy brought it up, and also agreed that a show needed to be done on this topicWhen Sarah started to do the research on it she too got fired upStacy wants to give a little preface and introduction to those listeners that might not know what Sarah and Stacy are talking about or who might come to it from a different perspectiveStacy is going to talk on her own about her personal experienceSarah has also dealt with the struggle with weight her whole lifeThe perspective that both Stacy and Sarah have, and what Stacy wants to focus on, is that Stacy's weight loss journey was never about calories in - calories outThere were emotional issues and there were health issuesToday Stacy and Sarah are going to talk about weight loss for childrenThe message that Stacy wants to share is that the foundation that we set for our kids at a young age is what is the foundation for their lifetimeStacy's concern is that when we introduce something like a weight loss program for kids, not only are we dealing with all the science that Sarah is going to cover on why this can be detrimental to their healthBut from Stacy's perspective, this was the start of an emotional relationship with food that went the opposite of a good directionStacy did end up getting therapy for bulimia and binge eating disorder as a teenagerShe went on diets on and off so muchDiets were a part of her family cultureStacy doesn't feel like they knew better back thenPeople encouraged family members to go on diets because they were thinking about their healthNow there is a much better understanding of health at any size, and there is more to health than just your weightThere is an insane amount of diet culture pervasivenessTo add to this blew Stacy's mindWe now know that asking children to diet creates this yo-yo roller coaster for themIt strips away the confidence or perceived support that they might have from focusing on positive healthy activities vs. counting caloriesWhen this weight loss program for kids came out, Stacy got so angryShe wanted to hug every single one of these children and tell them that they are wonderful just as they areWe need emotional support for these kids and teaching them good habitsFocusing on and praising the things that are really good in their lifeAnd doing it with themStacy shared on her experience with being obese and why she is so passionate about this topicSarah noted that kids are more emotionally vulnerableTeaching our kids that they are doing something wrong around the culture of weight significantly impacts their emotional healthSarah was a robust kid, but she wasn't overweight until her early teensIt became a self-fulfilling prophecyThere were many external influences that led to Sarah developing a binge eating disorder and eventually reaching a morbidly obese weightIn part, because she had an underlying health issue that was driving her weight gain and this went undiagnosed for something like 30 yearsIt felt to Sarah like nothing worked and it didn't matter what she didThe things that Sarah was doing were the popular diets at the timeAs Sarah digs into the data, she thinks that this weight loss program is not just everything wrong in supporting healthy habits in kidsBut it goes so much beyond that because we have this culture now where 91% of American woman have dissatisfaction with their bodiesThis is what we are doing to ourselves, and then teaching our kidsWe are teaching them that there is something wrong with them and that they have to fix themselvesDiets themselves can be physiologically harmfulIt is not just the psychological effectsSarah thinks that this is a symptom of a cultural phenomenon that is corrosiveWe put these underweight body types on this pedestal of being the height of beautyWhen what is healthy is actually heavier than thisWe then shame everybody elseWe shame people if they are not underweightThis was eyeopening to make Sarah think about how she talks to herself and how she treats herselfSarah wants to emphasize that the fixation in our community on weight instead of health is wrongSarah wants every one of The Paleo View listeners to look at your actions and self-talk and really think about it as objectively as you canHow can we together as a community move forward to address every aspect of thisWhat are we teaching our children about how to navigate healthy choices in life based on how we talk to ourselvesStacy encourages you, the next time you talk to yourself - if you were saying that to your child, mother, or best friend would you say it the same way that you talk to yourself?You can both accept yourself and love yourself and respect yourself as you are todayAND make healthier habits and changesHowever, the guilt and shame associated with the negative self-talk and mindset is so pervasive that it causes self-destructive habits when you don't achieve perfectionIt begets this negative cycle telling yourself that you are a worse person when you don't achieve an appearanceStacy has challenged herself over the last year to no longer acknowledge people's bodiesIf she comments on appearance, she makes it about how happy someone looks or how healthy they lookWords that don't associate with emptinessThis has been a habit she has had to shapeAs Stacy and Sarah jump into the rest of the show, Stacy encourages you to think positively about the changes you can make in the future and feel good about itThis is the kind of thought process that will help you achieve your goalIf you get caught up in reflecting back and thinking negatively, you will get sucked up in a black hole(19:50) The Research on Diets Longterm Effects
Sarah wants to go through some data to reinforce the importance of taking some time and revisiting these periods of self-reflection when it comes to how each one of us in contributing to diet cultureIt has been known in the medical literature for about 20 years that going on a diet as an adolescent dramatically increases the risk of developing an eating disorderThis was all launched by this well-done study from 1999 where they looked at 2,000 teenagers and did a whole pile of medical analysisThey looked at:Lifestyle factorsSurveys to look at mental healthStarting weightActivity levelsGenderThey discovered that the single biggest predictor of an eating disorder (looking at just anorexia and bulimia):In the kids who were on a severe diet, they were 18x more likely to develop an eating disorderIn the kids who were on a moderate diet, they were 5x more likely to develop an eating disorderThings that didn't affect the chances of developing an eating disorder:How active the kids wereWhat their starting BMI wasThere have been a variety of follow up studies that have confirmed these resultsThey have added binge eating disorder and obesityThere was a 2016 studypublished in the American Academy of Pediatrics that was like a review paper showing that dieting (defined as caloric restriction with the goal of weight loss) was not only a risk factor for developing eating disorders but it doubled the risk of obesityOften the diets that these kids and teens are going on are not nutrient-denseIt is not just calorically restricting, it is nutrient restrictingEven on some of the more forward-thinking diet plans that have unlimited vegetables, are not actually teaching people how to eat enough nutrientsWe are seeing that the psychological damage is almost certainly from that cycle of body shame, the stigma that is associated with it, and the anxiety, stress, and depressionSarah now talks a lot about healthy weight loss in her workshop and educational resourcesShe has an online course that is very much about health goal setting and addressing habits to normalize weight in a healthy wayIt ditches this mentality of losing a certain amount of weight for a life eventOne of the reasons that weight-loss maintenance is so challenging (especially the higher the caloric restriction), your hunger hormones increaseYour metabolism decreases, and your hunger increasesMost of these diets are not rich enough in protein to maintain lean muscle massIt is essentially a recipe for weight gainUnless you approach this in the right way, which is:Healthy habit developmentEat more vegetablesGet more sleepLive an active lifestyleManage your stressMake sure you are eating enough proteinThese habits will allow you to normalize weight and keep it offIt is very much about healthy choices and not necessarily a particular goalWhat is happening in these kids the diets that they are going on is setting them up to fail and to yo-yoThey are very goal-driven with an emphasis on, 'the faster the better'They are not focused on a nutrient-rich approachLosing weight is inflammatory and increases oxidative stressWeight loss is a process that requires an educationThe problem with these weight loss centers is that they said you up to yo-yoThere is this assumption that if you don't lose weight fast enough you won't stick to itBut if your approach is not making you healthier, it is hard to stick toThis process magnifies shameYou end up in both a physiological and psychological cycleThe physiological cycle is changing body composition in a way that is increasing the risk of health problems with every cycleThe psychological cycle is a cycle of shame and failure and rewardIt magnifies the shame when you cannot stick to this thing that you physiologically set yourself up to not be able to followSarah feels strongly about not distilling diet or lifestyle choices to yes's and no's - the things to do and the things to not doNot to put this stigma on no foodsAnd to not express things so simplistically that you cannot understand the why behind the choiceKids do not understand things like muscle weighing more than fat or how hormones and metabolism play into thingsSo think about the impact to a child who is being publically weighedWhen we introduce these ideas to kids they see it more simplisticallyThe more that we can learn the lingo, the science and the information (the why and the how), so that we can help our children understand it, the more we can combat diet culture within our households and communitiesNutrient deficiencies are one of the strongest links to chronic disease risksIt turns out when you eat a nutrient-rich diet it supports the reduced risk of disease, which is really the thing that mattersNot if you fit into those jeans or look good in a bikiniWe have trained ourselves to not look for the visual cues of healthThick, shiny hairGlowing skinA giant smileEnergyMuscleSarah says that body composition, as opposed to your weight on the scale, is very importantIt is far more important how much muscle we have, as opposed to fatThis paper that looked at diet and risk for eating disorders showed that exercise did not increase the risk of eating disordersSo just being active is a super healthy lifestyle choice that improves our health in a number of waysIf we can separate activity away from weight loss goals and diet mentality, it is a super healthy thing to doMetrics of health, we can also look at inflammatory markers in the blood, lipid panels, mood, energy levelsThese are far more important things for us to evaluate both in ourselves and in our kidsAre our kids getting enough sleep?Are they active?Do they have energy throughout the day?People can be underweight, overweight, and average weight and have tons of health issues(42:28) The Impact Beyond the Scale
For Stacy, she never saw anybody who looked like her in her early lifeHealthy at any size wasn't an actual thingIt didn't make her feel good to not see anyone who looked like her in pop cultureWhich only further enforced this idea that she needed to be thin to fit the idealThin was healthy and that was the marker of health Stacy was taught to work towardsNow there is so much more information than there use to beStacy has such hope that the next generation will have this information and will go back to the way that their grandparents livedNot just eating whole, nutrient-dense, low-inflammatory foods, but also using less plastic and all the other things that go into healthIf where we are going is putting children on weight loss programs and not talking about the things that really matter and helping them understand the emotional and physical impacts of nutrient and caloric restriction, then we are doomedStacy says we have to be change agentsOne of the things that Sarah finds really interesting is what it is doing to our epigenetics to go on these weight loss programsThere is data from the last 10-15 years showing that under-nutrition is linked to a dramatic list of negative health consequences that transcends generationsOne of the most interesting studies is the Dutch health study that looked at times of famine and how those impacted the health of the people depending on how they were and the health of their children, and now their grandchildrenThe kids who were the same age as those who these weight loss programs are targeting (8 to 17) were a particularly sensitive groupWomen who were between 10 and 17 at the start of the famine had later in their life a 38% increased risk of coronary heart diseaseIt does damage our body to have severe caloric restrictionIt increases our risk of some cancer, type-2 diabetes, obesity, immune suppression, mental health disorders, and moreThe children of these women are shorterThe study is now showing the increased rate of diseases through turning on these adaptations genes so your body is trying to survive a time of famine and this is turning some genes off and some genes onAnd they are seeing that this is inheritedWe need to fix this for our children's generationWe can actually point to genetic changes as a result of dieting that can then be passed on to their children that is then going to increase their risk of chronic diseaseThis is the opposite of healthWhile Sarah was talking, Stacy had a moment of guilt thinking about her history, but then she snapped herself out of it and reminded herself to not go into backward thinkingShe is instead thinking about all the things that she is doing now to benefit her boys so that they can have a better future(51:25) Closing Thoughts
What are the positive things we can do to not just address how we talk to ourselves, but really help our kids develop those healthy habits that will support a healthy weight (whatever that is for them) and lifelong health?The first one that Stacy wants to mention is that we have to live and lead by exampleAnd genuinely believe itThink about your wording and mentality around habitsBuild fun into healthy habitsBring your kids into the kitchen to cook with youSarah points out the importance of gathering for family mealsThis bonding translates to other healthy habitsFocus on higher vegetable consumptionCreating healthy sleep habitsOutside playWhen we focus on these things as the healthy habits that we work on as a family, we are setting the stage for naturally achieving a healthy weightWe are also naturally achieving healthRemember, healthy and thin does not mean the same thingThese two things can go together, but they don't alwaysIf you are going to choose one or the other, Sarah highly recommends choosing healthyStacy thinks this will provide structure for an easy way to talk to children about healthy and habitsStacy shared on how Matt and Stacy worked together to collaboratively work on their healthy habits and their health grooveShe shared insight into how we approach conversations and our word choices can make a huge differenceSarah shared on how her mental health plays a role on her physical healthShe has to be really mindful about self-destructive, self-talkAlso to let go of judgment and guiltStacy challenges herself to only focus on the things she really likes about herself to shift that negative mindsetEvery time she thinks negatively about herself, she then comes up with two things she likes about herselfThis was an activity they did with the kids while traveling this summer as wellWe all deserve to focus on the good things and to be complimented and to compliment othersThe more we do it to others, the more natural it will be to do it to yourselfSarah wants to reiterate that there is no part of this conversation that is helped by blame, guilt, or remorseThis is about moving forward and embracing these health journies as a family-focused on healthy habits and the bonding that comes out of these experiencesStacy sent all her love to the audiencePlease share this episode with your community and those who you think would benefit from this informationPlease also leave a review, which helps others see this show in their podcast feedsPlease also share it on your social media channels to help get this information to othersThank you so much for your support!Help others find these shows in a way that can help heal themselves and potentially heal their familiesStacy would love to hear from at least one parent how this episode shifted their thoughts and actions around how to help their familyThanks again for listening - Stacy and Sarah will be back next week!
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